Debug Like It's Your Job

Session Materials:

Being a developer is not just about writing code - that code must actually work and figuring out why it doesn't is a different mindset than writing it. Debugging is not a prescribed recipe, it is a necessary skill for any developer. While this ability is inevitably gained through experience, there are tips, tricks and techniques you can learn to level up your effectiveness as a programmer right now.
For the novice, student or new-grad, this session takes you through the most common things you don't know yet.
• how to use breakpoints effectively (there's more to it than you think)
• what the heck step-into, step-over and step-out do
• how to view and manipulate runtime state
• how to use your environment's interactive terminal to interrogate your program
• what the stack is and how it contains a wealth of information
• the importance of Known Good Values (KGVs) in isolating a problem
• knowing where to start by being a good investigator
This session saves you from all those stackoverflow.com downvotes and "did you even debug this?" comments. Bring a laptop and play along! Your browser tools are enough to try out many of the presented concepts.